Charles Hamel | Oil-industry critic, 84

Charles Hamel, 84, an influential oil-industry whistle-blower whose efforts so exasperated his targets that petroleum companies hired private detectives for a spying campaign to ferret out his sources and methods, died April 9 in Marysville, Wash.

His wife, Kathleen, confirmed the death, but said she did not know the cause. The Hamels moved about four years ago from Alexandria, Va.

Mr. Hamel's work as a leading oil-industry critic helped provoke congressional investigations that uncovered safety and maintenance problems on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

His transformation into an environmentalist was unexpected. As a former executive assistant to Sen. Mike Gravel (D., Alaska), Mr. Hamel had been a booster for the state's oil industry.

In the 1970s, he became an independent oil and shipping broker. He would buy oil in Alaska and move it on vessels that could pass through the Panama Canal, but he found that his clients were receiving oil "significantly diluted with water," he later told congressional investigators.

His business collapsed by the early 1980s, and he initiated a lawsuit against the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., a consortium of seven major oil companies that operates the 800-mile Trans-Alaska pipeline, claiming they had known of the watered-down oil.

Richard Steiner, a conservation biologist, oil-industry watchdog, and former professor, said that Mr. Hamel paved the way for greater citizen oversight of the oil industry in Alaska and that "the nation owes him a sincere debt of gratitude." - Washington Post